Broken Clocks

Dear Dr. Lawyer,

There’s no scripture where God says you can’t refer to secular reasoning. Proverbs is full of such. Jesus told a parable about how the people of this world are sometimes smarter than the people of the kingdom. Moses listened to Jethro, God confirming that Jethro’s apparently secular logic was correct.

To say that secular types cannot stumble upon the truth is illogical. Even a clock that’s broken is right twice a day.

Thanks,

Sid

(This is part of a comment to one of my blog posts, many months ago.  I ran across it yesterday. Apparently, I don’t see all the comments that come in, or perhaps I just forgot to respond. Anyway, here you go.)

Hi Sid,

You are correct. There is no scripture that says we can’t refer to secular reasoning. And Proverbs is full of it and Moses did rely on Jethro’s counsel. And don’t forget that Paul referred to a non-Christian philosopher to make a point in Titus 1:12.

I could write another post about this, perhaps I will, but I’ll keep this very short. The comment, “There’s no scripture where God says you can’t…” is really looking at the problem entirely the wrong way. It assumes an unbiblical approach to finding truth. There is nothing the Bible about not jumping off bridges wearing a tuxedo on the third Tuesday of the month either. But I tell you the first part would be something you shouldn’t do, whether the Bible says so or not. To say that since the Bible doesn’t say X is a sin, does not mean that God thinks everything X we come up with is a good thing.

You are also correct to note that broken clocks appear to be right twice a day. I added appear because, while broken clocks are reflecting the right time, since they are broken, they aren’t telling you anything. In other words, looking at a broken clock doesn’t really tell you the correct time unless you happen to be looking at it when it actually is the time it has stopped at. And you can only know that if you have an accurate outside source.

This is at the center of what I’m talking about when I talk about counseling psychology. They often reflect true things. They conduct very cool studies. They make great observations and describe things wonderfully. But how do you know if what they are saying is true? They might be right half the time, all the time, never. If you don’t have an absolute standard, you can’t know. And if you do have an absolute standard, you don’t need to make the psychology authoritative.

By the way, I’m not against using psychology. That isn’t what I’m objecting to when I see Christians use non-Christian psychology. What I’m up in arms about is Christians not knowing, or believing, that non-Christian psychology is a faith system. It is a different faith system. It isn’t submitted to Jesus as Lord. (If you want to read a really great article that spells this out in a very clear way, you should find and read “A Discussion Among Clergy” by Ed Welch.) In fact, psychology is really applied philosophy. In the same way that everyone lives out what is in their hearts (Lk 6:34), non-Christians who are studying human behavior are looking through the lens of their hearts and what they discover is always related to their faith assumptions.

At the end of the day, because it is a faith system, what they are doing is worshipping the god of psychology instead of the God of the Universe. And, if they would say, “No we’re Christians. We’re are borrowing psychological ideas and methods.” I will say, “No, what you are doing is worshipping the God of the Universe in the same way the non-Christian worships his gods.” And both of these (worshipping the god of psychology and worshipping the God of the universe in the way that the pagans worship their gods) are condemned in Scripture.

“Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known. (Dt 11:26–28) 

And,

And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place. You shall not worship the Lord your God with such things (Dt 12:3–4).

Everyone is different. Here’s what I see, and it is a spectrum, not everyone is doing the same things:

First, are those who are Christian, but their Christianity doesn’t enter their office spaces at all. They are totally psychologists without any hint that they know God, even when they know their counselee is a Christian.

Second, are those who are Christians and when they get a Christian counselee, they pray with them and use Christian words, but when the counseling starts, it is all psychology. There are no Biblical principles or applications, no call to godliness, confession of sin or repentance. No focus on heart change.

Third, the counselor is a Christian, gets a Christian counselee, and uses psychology as the primary source, but throws in Biblical examples to show where the psychology is right or correct. The psychology is still the authority, the Bible agrees. This is not Biblical counseling. It is psychology and it is really evil.

Let’s say a new believer comes to this counselor. She says, “I’m a Christian, so it would be helpful if you would talk to me like a Christian and help me in Christian ways.” The counselor says, “Oh, great! I’m a Christian too. This will be great.” Then, during the counseling process, the counselor uses psychology (which offers a false god, a broken clock), but dresses it up in Christian words and throws in verses here and there where they seem to agree with the counseling. He might use books like Boundaries, or The 5 Love Languages, or The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work for homework. Unless the counselee is really on her toes, she will not know that what she’s seeing is psychology dressed up in Christian clothes (I know, there’s nothing Christian about the last book). At the end of the day, she will be in love with psychology, not Jesus and she won’t even notice. Except that her faith is slowly dying and her relationship with God is slowly being destroyed.

Here’s the thing. The psychologist has it all backward. Instead of using the Bible as the authority, while showing that psychological studies agree, (if he ever mentions psychology at all), he did it the other way around. The science says, and the Bible agrees. Isn’t that great? We’re left wondering what he would do if Science had found something the Bible didn’t agree with.

I don’t have any trouble with watching the psychologists doing their thing and noticing that they seem to have found something cool about people. But the way we should respond is to take their really cool idea and read our Bible to see how it fits with Biblical passages and principles. If it fits, we should do it because it is Biblical, not because the non-Christians found it.

Here’s how I see it working. The Biblical counselor reads a Psychological journal. He comes across something he’s never seen before. “When bad things happen, you should run in circles, scream and shout.” He says to himself, “Hmm. Never thought of that. I wonder what the Bible has to say about that.” So, he goes off to his fancy search engine and asks, “Does the Bible have anything to say about running in circles, screaming and shouting?” 

There are several possibilities; it might come up with nothing. It might come up with references that point to passages that have nothing to do with what he is looking for. Or it might tell him that that sort of thing is all over the Bible. It is a Biblical idea he had just never seen it before. Praise God for Psychological journals!

From now on, when he runs into someone suffering from having “bad things happen,” he’ll say to them, “Hey, the Bible says that when bad things happen, you should run in circles and scream and shout.” You can read it right here in 1 Hesitations 4:8.

The fact that a psychological journal is where he first discovered this jewel does not make psychology, or the psychological study, the authority for the saying. He might never mention the article again or even think about it again. It was the source of the idea to search the Scriptures, but it isn’t the authority behind his application of the truth. The Word of God is what made running and shouting the right thing to do.

Treating psychology as the authority for truth is to worship the god of psychology. Using psychology in any way other than as a source for causing us to run to Scriptures is to turn away from God and rely on non-Christian and thus idolatrous authorities.

Notice here, I’ve not said it is sinful to read psychological things. I just finished a book on how to help anxious children written by one of the world’s foremost psychologists. We should read them, and even talk to them. We should also read philosophers, novels, politics, etc. but we need to remember that non-Christian and Christians who don’t know what they are doing are not leading you to God. In fact, they are working hard to lead you away from God (some without knowing it). You need to fight against them and fight for Jesus in all that you think, do, and say.

I hope that helps.

Photo by Josh Sorenson from Pexels